SOLD-Building Our House in Costa Rica For US$70,000

Our daughter is married to a Tico who works as a surveyor in the southern part of the Nicoya peninsula.

After numerous visits there, we began thinking about buying some property. We went around with a realtor who showed us numerous ocean-view lots. Needless to say, the prices were out of this world, for small lots offering little more than a flat space for the house and maybe a few trees. It was very discouraging.

We also had to pay several thousand dollars for a lawyer to set up a corporation — we are the sole shareholders. The property is wooded and hilly but has several platforms suitable for building on, as well as a lovely area next to a stream. The elevation is about 300 meters.

We solicited plans from our son-in-law’s brother, who is an architect. He designed a magnificent house for us from scratch, but we soon found it was just too difficult to decide on all the myriad details of the house without being there.

We decided to start by building a simple Costa Rican style house on one of the smaller platforms. Our daughter and her husband could live there, we would have a place to stay on vacations, and we could then think about what to do next.

This photograph above is the platform as we first saw it. You can tell by my wife’s hands on her hips that she had her doubts… The sea is several kilometers to the right, beyond a line of hills.

This promised to provide a breeze from right to left, though we didn’t feel any on this day because of all the foliage on the right which blocked it. Some serious thinning and pruning was in order! We planned for a large porch, where she is standing, to take advantage of the breeze.

Construction began in early September 2010. We decided to build a modular house made of interlocking concrete slabs, marketed by a Costa Rican company named Capresa (see note below). These houses are inexpensive, quick to put up, meet all local building codes, and are quite common in Costa Rica. There were about 10 different plans available; we chose a 3 bedroom, 2 bath model.

We hired a local builder who had experience with these houses. I’m proud to say we used locally produced materials exclusively, and all the workers were from our immediate area.

This photo is the Kitchen area under construction. The large opening at the right is for a sliding door. The Capresa design had no ceiling — looking up you would see the underside of the metal roof – so we asked the builder to add it. It’s made of sheets of white plastic.

Without question, this is one of the simplest but most important improvements we made. It keeps out bugs, provides a heat barrier between the living area and the space under the roof, and adds some soundproofing when rain pounds on the roof. The ceiling is quite high – about 10 feet.

A crucial feature of the design is the “upper foundation” (visible in this photo as a line about 1 foot below the ceiling). It connects the tops of all the walls with reinforced concrete. Our architect beefed up this part of the house to make it more earthquake-proof.

Working on the back porch. We added concrete window sills to the design. In addition, the roof of the Capresa house did not include any overhangs at each end. We asked our architect to add them, giving us a nice front porch and a very large back porch, which is where we spend most of our time.

The builder suggested lining the overhangs with teak, which as you can see is a great improvement. Part of the standard tin roof can be seen through the opening, which the workman is in the process of covering up with teak boards. The upper foundation is visible here as a light-colored band at the top of the wall.

The walls are about one third thinner than walls made of concrete block, but this is hardly noticeable in the finished house. Since they are solid concrete, they are immensely strong.

The architect enlarged the roof overhangs on each side to keep the walls of the house shaded during the hottest part of the day. Inside, the house stays comfortable without air conditioning. He also added the sidewalks under the overhangs.

The house came with no gutters, windows, or screens – we added them. The architect added four columns at each end of the house to support the extensions to the roof. They are made from teak trees that grew on our property.

The finished house covers a little less than 100 square meters (1,076 square feet), including the concrete sidewalks and porches. The total cost of construction, including all materials, labor, and various fees, was about $70,000. My son-in-law helped keep the cost down by picking up supplies for the builder and pitching in wherever he could during the construction process.

The back porch. The floor inside and out is finished with a layer of finely ground concrete, poured over regular concrete, and then sealed. It feels very smooth and cool underfoot. Teak strips embedded in it break it up into large square areas. The outermost meter has a slight slope away from the house.

Removing many small trees and undergrowth from around the platform has resulted in a prevailing breeze which flows through the length of the porch, just as we had hoped. Also, remarkably, it has given us views of distant hills that we didn’t know were there.

Sitting back here, surrounded on three sides by the sights and sounds of nature, is wonderfully peaceful. It’s hard to believe this is where my wife had been standing with her hands on her hips!

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Andrew Makarik

to@welovecostarica.com

Andrew Makarik is the main editor of WeLoveCostaRica, a fan of this sunny country. He is also a loving husband and a has a lovely daughter. By being a devoted family man and the biggest Costa Rica fan, he wants to make more people feel at home there. WeLoveCostaRica unites people and helps them find new home or a new travel destination. This website is a friendly community where everyone can find not only information, but also new friends and travel pals. Andrew is also passionate about IT and programming, so he himself maintains a friendly atmosphere in this cozy environment of WeLoveCostaRica.com.